1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to electronic devices, and more particularly, to a mechanism for automatically changing shapes of a flexible electronic device based on an event in the flexible electronic device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Due to the proliferation of flexible electronics, electronic devices have been provided with increasingly improved designs and user interfaces that significantly improve the overall user experience with the electronic devices. Flexible electronic devices allow the user to change shapes and user interfaces of the electronic device by bending, rolling, twisting, squeezing, folding, etc., in different angles and planes.
Different methods and systems have been proposed to change the shape of flexible electronic devices. In one such mechanism, user may manually change the shape of the electronic device by bending the electronic device in a particular way while performing a particular operation. For example, the user may bend the electronic device in a ‘V’ shape while performing a call function, bend in ‘L’ shape while composing a message, etc. In the above-described methods and systems, the user must manually change the desired shape of the electronic device, which is a tedious task. In another mechanism, flexible display technologies are used to flex electronic devices displays. The user may bend the display device into various shapes, such as to change the user interface pursuant to the user requirements. However, electronic devices with flexible displays are commonly provided with rigid housing structures or other structures that form a rigid electronic device. Further, such rigid electronic devices may be vulnerable to damage caused by an impact, such as from dropping the device on a hard surface.
Generally, the shape of the electronic device while performing operations may not be so attractive and may be unclear to the user. For example, in some electronic devices, when transferring contents from one device to another, during an alarm event, a screen timeout, or other timer-based events, etc., the shape of the device remains same. Some electronic devices provide a mechanism for changing the shape of the electronic device based on a user input. For example, when the user selects a gaming application in order to display a gaming console, the shape of the electronic device may change to a predefined shape in order to provide the user with a better user interface and easier access to the game controls. Further, while performing a particular operation, shapes that are better suited to perform the operation can be provided in real-time, even though the same operation can also be performed with other shapes. For example, while taking pictures, the capabilities of two cameras in the electronic device can be used to their complete extent by using different shapes.
Further, many such mechanisms for changing a shape of an electronic device use a shape changing materials such as, shape memory alloys, Dielectric Electro Active Polymers (DEAPs), temperature responsive polymers, piezoelectric materials, etc., to control the changes in shape of the electronic device. Though the use of such materials is effective to a certain degree for controlling the shape of the electronic device, these materials have their own respective advantages and disadvantages in terms of response time, structural fatigue (which may lead to a reduction in the number of times shapes can be changed), rigidness, the number of times the shape can be changed during the lifetime of the electronic device, etc. Therefore, there is a need of a robust system and method for automatically controlling shapes of the electronic device.